


World Ender

by xtricks



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Ghost Rider (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dark, F/M, Gen, Haunted West AU, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 12:12:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtricks/pseuds/xtricks
Summary: There's a price to pay when you ask La Leyenda for Vengeance.  Everyone has to pay, even the Rider.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a haunted Old West AU, history isn't the same, spirits bedevil (or help, or both) the people who live there and the dynamics of power between Europeans and Native Americans is slightly different (the Iroquois Confederacy has a seat in the US Congress in this world, for example). I've chosen to use the European-ized version of several Indian tribes, myths and legends, because I'm not a member of any and I'm not claiming to speak for, or represent them, and don't want to be mistaken for doing so. Using original language and nomenclature seems appropriation when I'm writing a fictional world.
> 
> Also, period typical prejudice and discrimination, as well as violence and general harshness. I'll try and remember to add tags and warnings as they come up.

“Christ’s Mercy, man, you can’t just drag me the whole fukin’ way!” Barrow had been complaining since Robbie had hauled his ass out of a whorehouse in Buckeye - the girls had been happy to give the man up, considering how he treated ‘em - and didn’t show much sign of shutting up.  Their shadows stretched long across the scrub, Robbie hunched on his horse and Barrow bringing up the rear, wrists tied to the end of a rope, stumbling over rocks and roots, as Robbie pulled him along like an unruly calf.

“It’s near three days now, I’m gonna die walkin all this way!”  Barrow hauled at the rope but Lucy, bless her, just flicked her ears and plowed on, making Barrow grunt and nearly fall off his feet.

“I’ll still get paid for your corpse,” Robbie said.  “Just less and I ain’t greedy.”

Barrow snarled, yanking at his hands again, to no point.  “Shit, you got no heart.” 

Robbie’s unseen smile wasn’t pretty.  Barrow didn’t know the half of it.

“Shoulda thought of that before you went and stole those Maricopa girls.”  Thinking again on what Barrow had done made Robbie’s shoulders tighten with the urge to maybe beat the man’s face in some more.  Most of the girls were still missing, dead maybe or sold off to some whorehouse if they were pretty. The tribe had scraped together money to pay Robbie to bring the man back to the tribe to face the girls’ families.

“I don’t deserve to die for some dirty Indian girls!” Barrow shouted.  “All them just cluttering up the land and doin’ nothing with it. I got good money for them and I can give you some ... more than those Indians promised you, I bet.  Fuck -  _ Fuck!  Stop!  _ God, man,  _ stop!” _

Robbie kneed Lucy again and she sped into a brisk canter as Barrow’s yelling turning to desperate, panting cries, then battered yells as he lost the fight to stay on his feet and was dragged behind Robbie’s horse.  He thought of just galloping on until there was nothing left but a bloody and torn body but reined in the impulse, and Lucy ... after a bit. Barrow was still alive around when Robbie stopped near sundown, though not much grateful for it.

 

TBC (8/12/18)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robbie's simple world is getting complicated, Barrow comes to the end he bought a long time ago and someone is willing to pay La Leyenda's price - but not for vengeance this time.

The sun was climbing up to noon and Barrow had finally shut the hell up.  Robbie had given him water in the morning but hadn’t bothered with food; they’d be back to the tribe before nightfall and Robbie didn’t think Barrow’d need to worry about eating then.  Besides, he didn’t have any.

They were riding in the shade of a rocky butte, banded in layers of red and yellow rock, when the prick of Lucy’s ears pointed Robbie’s attention along a ravine snaking away towards the afternoon sun.  There wasn’t anything to see but a moment later he heard the carrying sound of a horse’s distressed whinny. Robbie slipped his rifle from the saddle holster and angled Lucy closer to the butte, looking for cover.  They were in the middle of nowhere, there shouldn’t be any horses out here. Several tense minutes passed and nothing happened, except another of those carrying cries.

“C’mon,” Barrow hissed, crouched behind some skeletal shrubs, the only cover he had.  “Let’s move along, huh? Nothin’s our business out here.”

“Now suddenly you want to get back to the Maricopa?” Robbie snorted.  Then he kneed his horse along the run of the ravine, heading towards the sound and dragging Barrow - cursing in whispers - along behind.  No one rushed out in ambush but Robbie smelled death, and saw it too. A cluster of desert crows were hopping around and the skitter of little creatures taking advantage of the bodies strewn on the ground.  Because there were bodies. A half-dozen or so, all left haphazardly where they’d fallen. They weren’t too old, but the blood was dry, the faces already picked at and the smell already starting.

There was a white mare standing in a shallow ditch, blowing anxiously and pawing stubbornly at the ground at her feet. Lucy gave a reassuring whicker as Robbie slid off her back, rifle still in hand.  Just ‘cause everything looked dead and done, didn’t mean it  _ was _ .  Nothing jumped out, just Barrow’s nervous cursing and the crows complaining about Robbie interrupting their feast.

Looked like an ambush, bodies strewn haphazardly with empty holsters on their hips, they had multiple gunshot wounds, some were even bloodied like they’d tried last rush and come to blows before being shot down.  They’d been stripped of anything valuable; guns, bullets, boots in a few cases, pockets searched, but not buried - left to rot. Robbie clenched his jaw and straightened up, fighting the questions in his mind; who and what and why.  If he got too curious, he’d have to go and  _ do  _ something about it ... and that never ended.  Would never end. Not for him. 

There was a dull glint of metal in the dust near one of the dead and when Robbie picked it up it  _ was  _ too late.  “Pinkerton ....”  It was a pewter Pinkerton badge, nicked and well-used with the number 325 carved into it.  Had it come from one of the bodies? Or one of the attackers? Robbie’s hand tightened on the badge until the edges cut into his palm.  Either way someone was going to get a little vengeance, like it or not. Robbie shoved the badge in his pocket for later.

“Now, Lady,” Robbie eased on towards the mare. She was mostly white with grey dappling along her flanks like winter skies in pleasanter places than this.  Her coat was heavy with sweat and her gear - bridle and saddle - were askew and streaked with blood. She glared at him with white rimmed eyes, pointed her nose at Robbie and gave him a snort somewhere between fear and warning. The edges of the ditch were collapsed, she’d fallen or been pushed there and stood hock deep in stones and dust.  “I know,” he soothed. “It’s all done now. Lemme give you a hand outta there.”

If you asked him, Robbie wasn’t shy about claiming he cared more about beasts than people.  Animals, no matter how savage or wild, were innocent in a way people never were. And loyal beyond measure.

She let him get closer, but jerked her head out of range, lowering her head to paw and nose at the ground.  Horses weren’t built for digging but she’d sure been giving it a try. When Robbie scrambled down the bank of the ditch, he saw why.   _ “Senorita,” _ he sighed.  “There’s nothing more to do.”  

There was another body here, face down and mostly buried under loose scree.  A dusty hand was outstretched towards nothing, scrawny and small. The mare whickered softly, nosing at the exposed fingers.  They _ twitched. _

Robbie caught a sharp breath then dropped to his knees to dig.  Rocks and dirt and splintered scrub fell away to reveal a dust caked jacket, a tangle of dark hair, and the pallid, pretty face of a girl.  Why a girl was out  _ here _ , dressed like a boy, wasn’t a question Robbie had time to think on.  She was bleeding sluggishly, cheap plaid shirt dark with it, and Robbie thought she’d taken a hit to her head as well.  Neither was good.

He struggled out of the ditch with the girl in his arms, her horse scrambling after and snorting at his heels.  Lucy and Barrow had come to some agreement when he was busy, at least Barrow was groaning on the ground while Lucy had her ears flat and a rear leg cocked like a mule.  The man must’ve tried to get ahold of Lucy while Robbie wasn’t looking.

“Your bitch of a mare nearly broke my leg.”  Barrow wheezed.

“Lucky she didn’t do worse.”  Robbie laid the girl on the ground and shoved her shirt up to see to the wound.  She had a girly underthing on beneath that gave Robbie pause, embarrassed, before he pushed it aside.  He hadn’t laid hands on anything soft or gentle in ... a long time. “You got what you deserved.”

The bullet had punched right through her side, in and out again.  It wasn’t spurting blood or stinking like a gut shot so she might even live.  Robbie tore the tails of her shirt to make a bandage, snugging it tight then went to feel around her head, mouth drawn down.  She’d been hit alright, a lump along the side of her head was swollen and tight, it wasn’t bleeding and when Robbie tentatively pressed, he didn't feel the grind of broken bone.  Robbie leaned back with a sigh, wiping his hands on his pants. A cut you could stitch and bandage, cauterize if you had to, sickness there might be medicine for. But a blow to the head?  You just prayed and waited to see if they woke up again and Robbie had used up all his praying a long time ago.

“She goona live?”

“Maybe,” Robbie said then went to put the white horse’s tack to rights, searching the saddle bags for something to tie the girl to the saddle with.  It’d be nice if she could have a comfy bed and someone with skills to tend her but that wasn’t going to happen out here. 

“She got any money in those bags?” Barrow asked.

“ _ Fuck _ Barrow,” Robbie went over and kicked the man a couple of times in pure exasperation.  “I’m taking you to get killed and you still gotta be grabbing for gold! Maybe you should be making peace with god or something instead.”

“Sure,” Barrow grunted bitterly, hunched over from Robbie’s blows.  “God’s just got his ear peeled for me!”

Robbie scowled darkly and swung back onto Lucy’s back.  Barrow’s bitterness sounded too like his own. They both might have chosen the Devil’s road and Robbie didn’t have much good left in him but Barrow was  _ scum _ .  He tied the white mare’s reins to his saddle and urged Lucy into a brisk trot, making Barrow stumble and break into a limping jog behind him.

Robbie kept as good a speed as he could without outright killing Barrow and they made the Maricopa camp before mid-afternoon.  The flat roofed adobe homes were the same dusty red as the landscape, tucked among frayed cottonwood trees with storage baskets stacked neatly outside doorways.  The tribe lived along the Rio Gila, farming mostly, and now, fighting the tide of whites bringing their fences and cattle and booze. They weren’t part of the recognized civilized tribes back east, or big and powerful like some of the plains Indians but - none of the tribes out here being stupid - they had allied together to hold against the settlers and keep claim to their own land.  Last he’d heard, the tribes had pooled their cash money and hired some eastern lawyer to fight in the courts for them. Robbie could hear kids shouting alarm as he rode up, and dogs rushed up to bark warnings.

Martin Yello came out to meet him.  They’d known each, off and on, for years.  Robbie had watched Martin grow from a bratty kid, to a man, and now watched the grey creep through his hair and the years wear on his face.  Martin never mentioned, none of the tribe did, all the years that passed Robbie by, leaving him unchanged. “Ahh, found him.” He sounded tired more than anything.  Robbie didn’t know if Martin had lost a daughter to Barrow and hadn’t asked when he’d come with silver in his hand to pay Robbie’s price. “Who’s that?”

“A girl,” Robbie said, wincing a little and shaking his head at the faint flicker of hope in the Martin’s seamed face.  “No. Not Indian. There was some kind of shoot-out near Twobutt bute. She’s alive.”

“Not by much,” Martin said when he went over to get a closer look at her.  He gave the white mare a pat and Robbie’s shoulders eased. He didn’t have any way to care for the girl and gave Martin a sidelong look of gratitude when he nodded.  “Bring ‘em both. We’ll tend to her.”

The camp fell silent as Robbie came in, Barrow shuffling behind him with his head down, pale and too terrified to curse.  The jingle of tack pulled everyone away from their work, and they lined the path, eyes dark and steady and unflinchingly angry.  Lucy was used to it, long legged stride hardly changing, but the white mare’s ears shifted uneasily, shying closer to Lucy while her unconscious rider bobbed atop her.  Martin’s voice was startling in the tense quiet, soft as it was, when he called a couple of women to take the girl. As he went to slip the mare’s reins from Robbie’s saddle, he gripped Martin’s wrist.  “Be - be careful,” he said gruffly, startling himself. “She’s got a head wound. And a shot in the side.”

Martin’s white haired wife, and a girl with Martin’s square chin - so he still had a daughter - eased the girl from her horse and hurried her into one of the adobe homes that Robbie recalled was Martin’s.  A little bit of commotion started up, counterpoint to the painful silence surrounding Robbie and Barrow. It took him a bit before, chewing his lip, Robbie turned his back on that dark haired girl and urged Lucy on.  There wasn’t more he could do and he had a job to finish. 

It wasn’t far before he pulled Lucy to a halt and dismounted, smoothing his hand along her sleek black neck before pulling Barrow’s lead rope free of her saddle.  They were a little outside camp and all the adults had followed. Some - men and women both - had threshing sticks in their hands. Parents of the lost girls, Robbie knew.  “End of the line, Barrow,” he said, untying the rope. Barrow’s wrists were raw and bloody but that was another thing that wouldn’t be troubling him much longer. It didn’t trouble Robbie either, Barrow had earned what was coming and more.

“You -” Barrow sounded almost ...  _ bewildered _ .  Like, even now, he couldn’t believe what his life had brought him to.  “You can’t leave me here - you’re not really leaving me here with them?”

“Please, have mercy, man.” he clutched at Robbie’s sleeve. “You can’t.  You ain’t white but you ain’t  _ Indian _ .  You know they’re gonna kill me like a dog!  I’m  _ begging  _ -”

“Begging!” Robbie snarled, lashing out to grab the man’s throat, rage finally bursting free, eyes going hot and deadly under the brim of his hat.  He dug his fingers  _ in _ , feeling Barrow’s pulse thundering frantically as he shoved the man back, ignoring the frantic beat of his fists against his chest and arm and face.  It didn’t hurt. Not him, oh no, nothing could hurt him  _ now _ .  He clenched his hand tighter, cutting off Barrow’s frantic gasps.  His pleas for mercy. Robbie had none. Just  _ vengeance _ .  “You’re  _ begging  _ ... did the girls beg, Barrow?  When you sold them off? Did they plead with you ..?” 

In a fiery rush, Robbie  _ knew  _ the girls’ suffering. It filled him, sights and sounds and feelings all at once.  The agony of fear and desperation and despair. He was attacked in the night, shoved into burlap sacks like  _ garbage _ , saw the greed in Barrow’s eyes as strangers laid gold in his hands.  Robbie begged for freedom. He cried under the grasp of cruel hands. He was dragged from family and the land of his birth to suffering in grimy distant towns.  He was taken into darkness. The suffering, the betrayal, the  _ pain  _ woke the devil inside him - the burning ravenous spirit that wanted nothing but endless bloody  _ revenge _ .  He couldn’t hold it back any longer.  Robbie screamed. His screaming rose, awful and inhuman, as flesh burned and blood boiled to ash.  He was bones and fire, endlessly burning, a fist of flame clutched around Barrow’s throat.

_ Beg! _

Strangling Barrow couldn’t breathe, let alone beg, and his white rimmed eyes were half-mad with fear.  The devil lifted him from his feet, holding him mid-air, eyeless, burning gaze fixed on the sinner before him.  The Maricopa shuddered, whispering, but none turned away, none averted their gaze. They knew what they’d bought when they’d paid Robbie’s price.  

_ Beg as they begged!  Bleed as they bled! Weep for mercy as they wept! _

“P- please ....” Barrow squeaked, kicking, face turning red, tears of terror streaming down his face.  His flesh smoked where the spirit held him and he clawed desperately at the spirit’s bony hand.  _ “Please!” _

_ No. _

The spirit threw Barrow down where he collapsed in the dirt, gagging for air and crawling away.  When he came to the edge of the circle, one of the Maricopa thumped him with the stick she held. When Barrow looked pleadingly up at her, her eyes were as merciless as the devil’s.  “No,” she said, hitting him harder. “No mercy for you.”

The tribe closed in around Barrow, shutting outsiders away.

Robbie staggered back, pulling himself out of darkness and boxing the devil deep inside.   Sinking to his knees he yanked his hat off and groaned in pain as his flesh knit back together; ash to blood to char to skin.  It hurt nearly as bad to come back to himself as when the devil rose up and took him. Wiping a hand over his face, grateful to feel flesh and whole skin, Robbie made his way back to his feet and to where Lucy waited.  Twisting his fingers in her mane, Robbie buried his face against her neck, pushing aside Barrow’s yells, the sound of wood hitting flesh and the angry cries of the Maricopa taking their revenge.

He stopped, impulsively, at Martin’s house.  His wife was there, grinding something to paste in a cup.  “She gonna live?” Robbie asked. “The girl?”

“Maybe so,” she tipped her head side to side like she was giving odds.  “More likely to live than die.”

Robbie figited.

Martin’s lady snorted, brief smile deepening the crows lines around her eyes and mouth.  She poured water over the herbs she’d crushed, making a sharp smelling paste. “Go on, she’s been close to awake a few times.  Let her see her rescuer, yah?”

Robbie knew he shouldn’t but he went on in.

The girl wasn’t awake but she was wakeful, stirring and mumbling, face creased with pain even unconscious.  Cleaned up somewhat, Robbie could see she was pretty, young, and maybe part Chinese. Her hair was chopped short at the shoulders but that didn’t make her look anymore like a boy.  It put Robbie to wondering again; why she was here, what had happened. Who she had besides a horse to care for her now. Her clothes had been put aside and an Indian blanket pulled modestly to her neck though she was wiggling her way free of it.  Martin’s daughter was using cold river water to keep the swelling on her head down and maybe save her life. Sharp herbs burned in a fire too, Robbie knew some of the smells - medicine to clear away bad spirits and stir the mind towards wakefulness.

“... not going to leave me b’hind....” her dreams were troubled and the girl’s grasping hand found Robbie’s sleeve before he could pull away.  She had a grip on her too, and even asleep her mouth turned stubborn in a way that made Robbie smile and hurt his heart at the same time. He’d had a brother once, with that same stubborn pout.  Her eyes darted under her lids like she was looking for someone. One way or another, she’d been separated from her kin and left to the mercy of strangers, and that made Robbie mindful of his brother again, even more painfully.

It made him bend over, when he knew very well he shouldn’t, and whisper in her ear.  “Easy  _ chica _ , you got someone watching over you right now.  Take a little rest.”

It still took him some work to pry her fingers loose and he felt like he was betraying some agreement when he did.  She fell quiet again as Martin’s daughter changed the cool compress on her head. “Martin can send her onto Blackworth when she’s well enough, I guess,” he said.

“Yes, probably so.” Like most of the Maricopa, Martin’s daughter avoided his eyes.  He could read the sin in their hearts with a gaze, or the story went. So it was a surprise when she looked at him, jaw set.  “I want you to find my friend,” she said, mouth trembling but eyes set hard on Robbie. Her hair was in a sleek maiden’s twist but there was nothing childish in her gaze.  “And bring her home.”

“I don’t rescue folks,” Robbie said.  

“You rescued  _ her _ .”  The accusation in her voice wasn’t for the girl lying unconscious between them.

What was he to say?   _ Wasn’t nothing much, the girl had been on the way, _ or, _ it didn’t take any work to sling her on a horse. _  He couldn’t say that to her face, or over the girl he’d found.  Robbie was the one to look away. “Nothing’s for free.”

She was ready for that too.  Setting aside the water and bandages, Martin’s daughter slipped a woven band from her wrist and held it to Robbie.  He took it unwillingly. It was plain, glossy black with a red yarn loop at one end and a shell bead for a fastener.  You couldn’t tell by looking but Robbie felt the fine weavework that had gone into it, it was plaited hair in a square key pattern.  It was beautiful under his fingers, and more than that too. Made from two girls’ hair, memories that weren’t his sparked in his mind when he touched what they’d made.  Each cutting a length of hair, weaving them together, weaving their lives together. Promises made and Martin’s girl here determined to keep them.

“She ... she has one too.”  

What had gone into this bit of ornament was worth more than a pound of gold and Robbie’s price was paid.  He closed his fingers over it. “The best chance I got for a lead is getting beat to death by your kin,” he said gruffly.  It was a half-assed excuse because, paid or not, he didn’t want this job. Vengeance was one thing, but failing to save someone hurt like hell.

Martin’s daughter rushed outside.  Robbie took on her work, soothing their lost girl’s head with cool water and whispers that he’d deny he’d ever spoke.  The Devil’s own didn’t promise a stranger  _ ah, senorita, you’ll be fine in no time.  Don’t you worry about nothin’ _

Her mother came in shortly after and it took the two of them to get any of that medicine down the girl’s throat.  Even semi-conscious, she wanted nothing to do with it.

“Maybe that’ll wake her up,” Robbie said, wearing a fair bit of it on his shirt and swiping some off his cheek.

The old lady chuckled.  “Wouldn’t be the first time my medicine was a ‘miracle’ cure.”

Her eyes rested on the band Robbie had tucked in his shirt pocket but she didn’t say anything about it.  The didn’t talk at all, something he liked about Martin’s kin. They didn’t fill up the air with empty words.

It wasn’t too long before he heard the rush of footsteps and he went outside, not looking back at the girl.  Martin’s daughter was there with bloody hands and an angry face. Not her blood. “He’s still alive.” She glared over her shoulder.  “They’ll let you have him but he’s got to end up dead.”

“I can do that,” Robbie replied but stopped to touch her shoulder  “What’s your name?”

The girl flushed darkly.  Robbie got why, ‘cause his question was plain rude.  The Maricopa and some of the other tribes around here kept their names close.  Martin’s name wasn’t Martin, nor Yello - that was just for white folks. They didn’t give them to strangers, to folks outside the tribe, but Robbie had a right, and a need.  He had to know these girls if he was to save them.

“Noomi,” she said, after a wrestle with herself and, biting her lip, she went on.  “My friend’s name is Ruth.”

“Okay,” Robbie said, reaching to his pocket and pulling on his gloves.  They’d helped him out plenty with folks like Barrow. “I’ll go see what Barrow’s got left to say for himself.”

Barrow was still alive but a bloody, sorry sight to see.  Pretty broken up, even if Robbie could save his life he wasn’t sure there’d be much point.  Not that Robbie was inclined to help a worthless soul like his, but he still had something to offer the man, death sentence or not.

He grabbed Barrow’s hair and hauled his face up, ignoring his whine of pain, and the hateful glare.  “I got a deal for you.”

Even now, meanness filled Barrow’s soul.  He spat bloodily on Robbie’s denim. “F-fuck you,” he slurred.  

Robbie twisted his hand in Barrow’s hair, though he wasn’t sure the man really felt it with everything else wrong with him.  “You’re about ten seconds from me giving you back to the Indians and letting them finish the job.”

“N-no, fuck man, please, no.”

“Okay,” Robbie slipped his pistol from his holster, all blackened steel and inlaid bone handles, crimson enamel like flames licked along the barrel.  It hadn’t always been fancy like that but the Devil was vain. “You’re a dead man, Barrow, and there’s two ways it’s gonna end.” He nudged Barrows chin with his gun.  “The quick way, or the long way. You already got a taste of the long way. I got the only quick way you’re gonna get.”

Barrow drooped and if Robbie had any pity left in him, maybe he’d pity Barrow - but he remembered why he was here in the first place, and the way it had felt to be the girls he’d kidnapped, and any pity he had dried right up.  “What do you want, asshole.”

“Who’d you sell those girls to?  The same folks or different? I want names,” Robbie shook Barrow, crouching down beside him.  “I want places. I want it all, Barrow. Then you’ll get your escape and god can fuckin’ deal with you.”

Barrow hesitated only a minute, but he knew his run had ended and all he had left was finding the easy way out.  “Fine. You find ‘em and kill ‘em for getting me into this damn mess. Ward - he’s some ... I dunno, government flunky.  He buys some of the girls and I don’t see ‘em again. Doesn’t care what they look like, just that they’re Indian. Sometimes he wants other stuff, rocks and shit, old weaving, or Hopi pottery.  He’s got a brit working with him, but I think he’s just hired help. Hunter or some such, and his girl’s a bitch.”

“Seems like everyone’s a bitch to you,” Robbie replied.  “Wonder why.”

Barrow listed to one side wearily, cradling a broken arm.  “I send a telegram when I got what they want and meet ‘em up in Blackworth.”  He gave that up too, and everything else, that some girls just went to a couple of whorehouses in Vegas, the rest to this Ward agent.  He told Robbie a lot more too, more than Robbie cared to know about what Barrow did, who he was. Robbie had heard it before, these last confessions, folks desperate to be remembered, even by an enemy.  He always listened in a weird sort of mercy, or maybe his own guilt.

“Okay,” Robbie said when Barrown ran out of words, straightening up, gun at his side.  He made it quick like he promised, the easy pull of a trigger, the thunder of a single gunshot.  Cranes and crows stormed out of the trees, shrieking at the noise and a man was dead.  Robbie felt nothing but a curl of hot satisfaction deep inside where the Devil lived.  


_ Vengeance. _

 

TBC (8/12/18)


End file.
